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CALIFORNIA 
ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

A PLEA FOR THE COLLECTION 

PRESERVATION AND DIFFUSION OF 

INFORMATION RELATING 

TO PACIFIC COAST 

HISTORY 

BY f^^ 

JOHN FrloAVIS 

V 

The Californian loves his state 
because his state loves him. He 
returns her love with a fierce 
affeSiion that to men who do 
not know California is always a 
surprise,— David Starr Jordan 

in ^^ California and the Ca/ifornians.'^ 



SAN FRANCISCO 

A. M. ROBERTSON 

1914 






Copyright, 1914, by 

A. M. ROBERTSON, 

San Francisco. 



Printed by 

Taylor, Nash & Taylor 

Saa Francisco 

AUG 12 1914 



^<^ . 



CI,A376974 



^/ 



As we transmit our institutionsy so we shall transmit our 
blood and our names to future ages and populations. What 
multitudes shall throng these shores, what cities shall gem the 
borders of the sea! Here all peoples and all tongues shall meet. 
Here shall be a more perfect civilization^ a more thorough in- 
telleSlual development y a firmer faith, a more reverent worship. 
Perhaps, as we look back to the struggle of an earlier age, and 
mark the steps of our ancestors in the career we have traced, 
so some thoughtful man of letters in ages yet to come may bring 
to light the history of this shore or of this day. I am sure, 
fellow citizens, that whoever shall hereafter read it will per- 
ceive that our pride and joy are dimmed by no stain of selfish- 
ness. Our pride is for humanity; our joy is for the world; 
and amid all the wonders of past achievement and all the 
splendors of present success, we turn with swelling hearts to 
gaze into the boundless future, with the earnest conviction that 
it will develop a universal brotherhood of man. 

— E. D. Baker, Atlantic Cable Address. 



TO 

CHARLES STETSON WHEELER 

AN ABLE ADVOCATE 

A GOOD CITIZEN, A DEVOTED HUSBAND AND FATHER 

A LOYAL FRIEND 

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS 

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

^his plea is an arrow shot into the air. It is 
the result of an address which I made at Colton 
Hall, in Monterey, upon the celebration of Admis- 
sion Day, igoS, and another which I made at a 
luncheon meeting of the Commonwealth Club, at the 
Palace Hotel, San Francisco, on April 12, igij. 
'These addresses have been amplified and revised, 
and certain statistics contained in them have been 
brought down to the end of igiS- In this form 
they go forth to a larger audience, in the earnest 
hope that they may meet a kind reception, and some- 
where find a generous friend. 

'The subject of Pacific Coast history is one of sur- 
passing interest to Calif ornians. Somefiyie additions 
to our store of knowledge have been made of late 
years, notably the treatise of Zoeth S. Eldredge on 
" 'The Beginnings of San Francisco" published by 
the author, in San Francisco, in igi2 ; the treatise 
of Irving Berdine Richman on " California under 
Spain and Mexico, i^j^-iS^y,'' published by the 
Houghton Mifflin Company, of Boston and New 
York, in igii ; the warm appreciation of E. D. 

vii 



Baker, by Elijah R, Kennedy y entitled ^^ 'The Contest 
for California in 1861^' published by the Hough- 
ton Mifflin Company, in Boston and New York, in 
igi2; the monumental work on ''''Missions and 
Missionaries of California^' by Fr. Zephyrin En- 
gelhardt, published by the James H, Barry Com- 
pany, of San Francisco, igo8-igij, and the " Guide 
to Materials for the History of the United States 
in the Principal Archives of Mexico,'' by Herbert 
E. Bolton, Ph, D., Professor of American History 
in the University of California, the publication of 
which by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 
at Washington, D. C, in /^/J, is an event of ep- 
ochal historical importance. All of these works and 
the recent activities in Spain of Charles E. Chap- 
man, the 'Traveling Fellow of the University of 
California, the publications of the Academy of Paci- 
fic Coast History, at Berkeley, edited by F. J. 
Teggart, and the forthcoming publication at San 
Francisco of "y^ Bibliography of California and 
the Pacific West," by Robert Ernest Cowan, only 
emphasize the importance of original research work 
in Pacific Coast history, and the necessity for prompt 
action to preserve the remaining sources of its ro- 
mantic and inspiring story, 

John F. Davis. 

San Francisco, July i , 1914. 



Vlll 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

California Romantic and Resourceful i 
The Love-Story of Concha Arguello 6i 
Concepcion Argue LLO (5r^/ //^r/^) . . 71 



IX 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Discovery of San Francisco Bay by Portola . Frontispiece ^ 

Carmel Mission opposite page 6 "^ 

Sutter's Mill at Coloma .... ** ** i8 

Old Colton Hall and Jail, Monterey '* ** 34 

Commodore Sloat's General Order . '* ** 44 

Comandante's Residence, San Francisco ** ** 60 , 

Baptismal Record of Concepcion Arguello ** ** 70 



XI 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC 
AND RESOURCEFUL 

ONE of the most important acts of 
the Grand Parlor of the Native 
Sons of the Golden West which 
met at Lake Tahoe in 1910 was the appro- 
priation of approximately fifteen hundred 
dollars for the creation of a traveling fel- 
lowship in Pacific Coast history at the 
State University. In pursuance of the res- 
olution adopted, a committee of five was 
appointed by the head of the order to con- 
fer with the authorities of the university 
in the matter of this fellowship. The uni- 
versity authorities were duly notified, both 
of the appropriation for the creation of the 
fellowship and of the appointment of the 
committee, and the plan was put into 
practical operation. In 1911 this action 

1 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

was reaffirmed, and a resident fellowship 
was also created, making an appropriation 
of three thousand dollars, which has been 
repeated each year since. Henry Morse 
Stephens, Sather Professor of History, and 
Herbert E. Bolton, Professor of Ameri- 
can History, and their able assistants 
in the history department of the univer- 
sity have hailed with delight this public- 
spirited movement on the part of that 
organization. 

The object and design of these fellow- 
ships is to aid in the collection, preserva- 
tion and publication of information and 
material relating to the history of the 
Pacific Coast. Archives at Queretaro and 
Mexico City, in Mexico, at Seville, Siman- 
cas and Madrid, in Spain, and in Paris, 
London and St. Petersburg are veritable 
treasure mines of information concerning 
our early Pacific Coast history, and the 
correspondence of many an old family and 

2 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

the living memory of many an individual 
pioneer can still furnish priceless records 
of a later period. Professor Stephens has 
elaborated a practical scheme for making^ 
available all these sources of historical in- 
formation through the providence of these 
fellowships, as far as they reach. 

The perpetuation of these traditions, the 
preservation of this history, is of the high- 
est importance. Five years ago, at Mon- 
terey, upon the celebration of the anniver- 
sary of Admission Day, I took occasion to 
urge this view, and I have not ceased to 
urge it ever since. If we take any pride in 
our State, if the tendrils of affection sink 
into the soil where our fathers wrought, 
and where we ourselves abide and shall 
leave sons and daughters after us, if we 
know and feel any appreciation of local 
color, or take any interest in the drama of 
life that is being enacted on these Western 
shores, then the preservation of every 

3 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

shred of it is of vital importance to us — 
at least as Californians. 

The early history of this coast came as 
an offshoot of a civilization v^hose antiqui- 
ty was already respectable. "A hundred 
years before John Smith saw the spot on 
which was planted Jamestown/' says Hu- 
bert H. Bancroft, ''thousands from Spain 
had crossed the high seas, achieving 
mighty conquests, seizing large portions 
of the two Americas and placing under 
tribute their peoples." 

The past of California possesses a 
wealth of romantic interest, a variety of 
contrast, a novelty of resourcefulness and 
an intrinsic importance that enthralls the 
imagination. I shall not attempt to speak 
of the hardship and high endeavor of the 
splendid band of navigators, beginning 
with Cabrillo in 1542, who discovered, ex- 
plored and reported on its bays, outlets, 
rivers and coast line; whose exploits were 

4 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

as heroic as anything accomplished by the 
Norsemen in Iceland, or the circumnavi- 
gators of the Cape of Good Hope. I do not 
desire to picture the decades of the pastor- 
al life of the hacienda and its broad acres, 
that culminated in *'the splendid idle for- 
ties." I do not intend to recall the miniature 
struggles of Church and State, the many 
political controversies of the Mexican re- 
gime, or the play of plot and counterplot 
that made up so much of its history ''be- 
fore the Gringo came." I shall not try to 
tell the story of the discovery of gold and 
its world-thrilling incidents, nor of the 
hardships and courage of the emigrant 
trail, nor of the importance of the mission 
of the Pathfinder, and the excitement of 
the conquest, each in itself an experience 
full to the brim. 

Let me rather call attention to three in- 
cidents of our history, ignoring all the rest, 
to enforce the point of its uniqueness, its 

5 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

variety, its novelty, its importance, as en- 
titling it to its proper proportionate place 
in the history of the nation. 

And first of all, the story of the missions. 
The story of the missions is the history of 
the beginning of the colonization of Cali- 
fornia. The Spanish Government v^as de- 
sirous of providing its ships, on the return 
trip from Manila, w^ith good harbors of 
supply and repairs, and v^as also desirous 
of promoting a settlement of the north as 
a safeguard against possible Russian ag- 
gression. The Franciscans, upon the ex- 
pulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, had taken 
charge of the missions, and, in their zeal for 
the conversion of the Indians, seconded the 
plans of the government. 

"The official purpose here, as in older 
mission undertakings," says Dr. Josiah 
Royce, "was a union of physical and spir- 
itual conquest, soldiers under a military 
governor co-operating' to this end with 

6 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

missionaries and mission establishments. 
The natives were to be overcome by arms 
in so far as they might resist the conquer- 
ors, were to be attracted to the missions by 
peaceable measures in so far as might prove 
possible, were to be instructed in the faith, 
and were to be kept for the present under 
the paternal rule of the clergy, until such 
time as they might be ready for a free life 
as Christian subjects. Meanwhile, Spanish 
colonists were to be brought to the new 
land as circumstances might determine, 
and, to these, allotments of land were to be 
made. No grants of lands, in a legal sense, 
were made or promised to the mission es- 
tablishments, whose position was to be 
merely that of spiritual institutions, in- 
trusted with the education of neophytes, 
and with the care of the property that 
should be given or hereafter produced for 
the purpose. On the other hand, if the 
government tended to regard the missions 

7 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

as purely subsidiary to its purpose, the out- 
going missionaries to this strange land 
were so much the more certain to be quite 
uncorrupted by worldly ambitions, by a 
hope of acquiring wealth, or by any inten- 
tion to found a powerful ecclesiastical gov- 
ernment in the new colony. They went to 
save souls, and their motive was as single 
as it was worthy of reverence. In the 
sequel, the more successful missions of 
Upper California became, for a time, very 
wealthy; but this was only by virtue of the 
gifts of nature and of the devoted labors 
of the padres.'* 

Such a scheme of human effort is so 
unique, and so in contradiction to much 
that obtains today, that it seems like a nar- 
rative from another world. Fortunately, 
the annals of these missions, which ulti- 
mately extended from San Diego to be- 
yond Sonoma — stepping-stones of civili- 
zation on this coast — -are complete, and 

8 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

their simple disinterestedness and direct- 
ness sound like a tale from Arcady. They 
were signally successful because those who 
conducted them were true to the trustee- 
ship of their lives. They cannot be held 
responsible if they were unable in a single 
generation to eradicate in the Indian the 
ingrained heredity of shiftlessness of all 
the generations that had gone before. It 
is a source of high satisfaction that there 
was on the part of the padres no record of 
overreaching the simple native, no failure 
to respect what rights they claimed, no 
carnage and bloodshed, that have so often 
attended expeditions sent nominally for 
civilization, but really for conquest. Here, 
at least, was one record of missionary en- 
deavor that came to full fruition and 
flower, and knew no fear or despair, until 
it attracted the attention of the ruthless 
rapacity and greed of the Mexican govern- 
mental authority crouching behind the 

9 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

project of secularization. The enforced 
withdrawal of the paternal hand before the 
Indian had learned to stand and walk 
alone, coupled in some sections with the 
dread scourge of pestilential epidemic, 
wrought dispersion, decimation and de- 
struction. If, however, the teeming acres 
are now otherwise tilled, and if the herds 
of cattle have passed away and the com- 
munal life is gone forever, the record of 
what was accomplished in those pastoral 
days has linked the name of California 
with a new and imperishable architecture, 
and has immortalized the name of Junip- 
ero Serra.* The pathetic ruin at Carmel is 
a shattered monument above a grave that 
will become a world's shrine of pilgrimage 
in honor of one of humanity's heroes. The 
patient soul that here laid down its bur- 
den will not be forgotten. The memory of 



*Pronounced Hoo-neep-ero, with the accent on the sec- 
ond syllable. 

10 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

the brave heart that was here consumed 
with love for mankind will live through 
the ages. And, in a sense, the work of 
these missions is not dead — their very 
ruins still preach the lesson of service and 
of sacrifice. As the fishermen off the coast 
of Brittany tell the legend that at the even- 
ing hour, as their boats pass over the van- 
ished Atlantis, they can still hear the 
sounds of its activity at the bottom of the 
sea, so every Californian, as he turns the 
pages of the early history of his State, 
feels at times that he can hear the echo of 
the Angelus bells of the missions, and 
amid the din of the money-madness of 
these latter days, can find a response in 
"the better angels of his nature." 

In swift contrast to this idyllic scene, 
which is shared with us by few other sec- 
tions of this country, stands the history of 
a period where for nearly two years this 
State was without authority of American 

11 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

civil law, and where, in practice, the only 
authority was such as sprang from the 
instinct of self-preservation. No more in- 
teresting phase of history in America can 
be presented than that which arose in Cali- 
fornia immediately after the discovery of 
gold, with reference to titles upon the pub- 
lic domain. James W. Marshall made the 
discovery of gold in the race of a small 
mill at Coloma, in the latter part of Jan- 
uary, 1848. Thereupon took place an in- 
cident of history which demonstrated that 
Jason and his companions were not the 
only Argonauts who ever made a voyage 
to unknown shores in search of a golden 
fleece. The first news of the discovery al- 
most depopulated the towns and ranches 
of California, and even affected the dis- 
cipline of the small army of occupation. 
The first winter brought thousands of Ore- 
gonians, Mexicans and Chilenos. The ex- 
traordinary reports that reached the East 

12 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

were at first disbelieved, but when the pri- 
vate letters of army officers and men in 
authority were published, an indescribable 
gold fever took possession of the nation 
east of the Alleghanies. All the energetic 
and daring, all the physically sound of all 
ages, seemed bent on reaching the new El 
Dorado. ''The old Gothic instinct of in- 
vasion seemed to survive and thrill in the 
fiber of our people," and the camps and 
gulches and mines of California witnessed 
a social and political phenomenon unique 
in the history of the world — the spirit and 
romance of which have been immortalized 
in the pages of Bret Harte. 

Before 1850 the population of California 
had risen from 15,000, as it was in 1847,* to 



* The best pen-picture of San Francisco just before the 
discovery of gold that I know of is chat given by one who 
was an eye-witness: "At that time (July, 1847), what is 
now called San Francisco was called Yerba Buena. A 
naval officer. Lieutenant Washington A. Bartlett, its first 
Alcalde, had caused it to be surveyed and laid out into 
blocks and lots, which were being sold at sixteen dollars a 

13 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

100,000, and the average weekly increase 
for six weeks thereafter was 50,000. The 
novelty of this situation produced in many 
minds the most marvelous development. 
"Every glance westward was met by a new 
ray of intelHgence; every drawn breath of 



lot of fifty varas square; the understanding being that no 
single person could purchase of the Alcalde more than one 
in-lot of fifty varas, and one out-lot of a hundred varas. 
Folsom, however, got his clerks, orderlies, etc., to buy lots, 
and they, for a small consideration, conveyed them to him, 
so that he was nominally the owner of a good many lots. 
Lieutenant Halleck had bought one of each kind, and so had 
Warner. Many naval officers had also invested, and Cap- 
tain Folsom advised me to buy some, but I felt actually 
insulted that he should think me such a fool as to pay 
money for property in such a horrid place as Yerba Buena, 
especially in his quarter of the city, then called Happy 
Valley. At that day Montgomery Street was, as now, the 
business street, extending from Jackson to Sacramento, the 
water of the bay leaving barely room for a few houses on 
its east side, and the public warehouses were on a sandy 
beach about where the Bank of California now stands, viz., 
near the intersection of Sansome and California streets. 

The population was estimated at about four 

hundred, of whom Kanakas (natives of the Sandwich 
Islands) formed the bulk." — Personal Memoirs of General 
W. T. Sherman (Charles L. Webster & Co., New York, 
1891), p. 61. 

14 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

western air brought inspiration; every step 
taken was over an unknown field; every 
experiment, every thought, every aspira- 
tion and act were original and individual." 
At the time of Marshall's discovery, the 
United States was still at war with Mexi- 
co, its sovereignty over the soil of Cali- 
fornia not being recognized by the latter. 
The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was not 
signed until February 2d, and the ratified 
copies thereof not exchanged at Queretaro 
till May 30, 1848. On the 12th of Febru- 
ary, 1848, ten days after the signing of the 
treaty of peace and about three weeks 
after the discovery of gold at Coloma, 
Colonel Mason did the pioneers a signal 
service by issuing, as Governor^ the proc- 
lamation concerning the mines, which at 
the time was taken as a finality and cer- 
tainty as to the status of mining titles in 
their international aspect. " From and after 
this date," the proclamation read, "the 

IS 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Mexican laws and customs now prevailing 
in California relative to the denouncement 
of mines are hereby abolished." Although, 
as the law was fourteen years afterwards 
expounded by the United States Supreme 
Court, the act was unnecessary as a pre- 
cautionary measure,* still the practical re- 
sult of the timeliness of the proclamation 
was to prevent attempts to found private 
titles to the new discovery of gold on any 
customs or laws of Mexico. 

Meantime, California was governed by 
military authority, — was treated as if it 
were merely a military outpost, away out 
somewhere west of the " Great American 
Desert.'' Except an act to provide for 
the deliveries and taking of mails at cer- 
tain points on the coast, and a resolution 
authorizing the furnishing of arms and 
ammunition to certain immigrants, no 

*Umted States vs. Castellero, 2 Black (67 U. S.), 17-371. 

16 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Federal act was passed with reference to 
California in any relation; in no act of 
Congress was California even mentioned 
after its annexation, until the act of March 
3, 1849, extending the revenue laws of the 
United States "over the territory and wa- 
ters of Upper California, and to create cer- 
tain collection districts therein/' This act 
of March 3, 1849, not only did not extend 
the general law^ of the United States over 
California, but did not even create a local 
tribunal for its enforcement, providing 
that the District Court of Louisiana and 
the Suprem.e Court of Oregon should be 
courts of original jurisdiction to take cog- 
nizance of all violations of its provisions. 
Not even the act of September 9, 1850, 
admitting California into the Union, ex- 
tended the general laws of the United 
States over the State by express provision. 
Not until the act of September 26, 1850, 
establishing a District Court in the State, 

17 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

was it enacted by Congress "that all the 
laws of the United States which are not 
locally inapplicable shall have the same 
force and effect within the said State of 
California as elsewhere in the United 
States/' * 

Though no general Federal laws were 
extended by Congress over the later ac- 
quisitions from Mexico for more than two 



*A vivid and most interesting account of General Sut- 
ter's helpless attempt to obtain from the military Governor 
a recognition of his title to the land upon which his tail- 
race was situated is given by General W. T. Sherman: 
"I remember one day in the spring of 1848, that two men, 
Americans, came into the office and inquired for the Gov- 
ernor. I asked their business, and one answered that they 
had just come down from General Sutter on special bus- 
iness, and wanted to see Governor Mason in person. I took 
them in to the Colonel, and left them together. After some 
time the Colonel came to his door and called to me. I went 
in, and my attention was directed to a series of papers un- 
folded on his table, in which lay about half an ounce of 

placer gold Colonel Mason then handed me a 

letter from Captain Sutter, addressed to him, stating that he 
(Sutter) was engaged in erecting a sawmill at Coloma, 
about forty miles up the American Fork, above his fort at 
New Helvetia, for the general benefit of the settlers in that 
vicinity; that he had incurred considerable expense, and 

18 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

years after the end of the war, the para- 
mount title to the pubHc lands had vested 
in the Federal Government by virtue of the 
provisions of the treaty of peace; the pub- 
lic land itself had become part of the public 
domain of the United States. The army of 
occupation, how^ever, offered no opposi- 
tion to the invading army of prospectors. 
The miners v^ere, in 1849, tw^enty years 
ahead of the railroad and the electric tele- 
graph. The telephone had not yet been 



wanted a 'preemption' to the quarter section of land on which 
the mill was located, embracing the tail-race in which this 
particular gold had been found. Mason instructed me to 
prepare a letter, reciting that California was yet a Mexican 
province, simply held by us as a conquest; that no laws of 
the United States yet applied to it, much less the land laws 
or preemption laws, which could only apply after a public 
survey. Therefore it was impossible for the Governor to 
promise him (Sutter) a title to the land; yet, as there were 
no settlements within forty miles, he was not likely to be 
disturbed by trespassers. Colonel Mason signed the letter, 
handed it to one of the gentlemen who had brought the 

sample of gold, and they departed That gold 

was the first discovered in the Sierra Nevada, which soon 
revolutionized the whole country, and actually moved the 
whole civilized world." — Personal Memoirs, p. 68. 

19 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

invented. In the parlance of the times, the 
prospectors *'had the drop" on the army. 
In Colonel Mason's unique report of the 
situation that confronted him, discretion 
waited upon valor. *'The entire gold dis- 
trict,'' he wrote to the Government at 
Washington, ''with few exceptions of 
grants made some years ago by the Mexi- 
can authorities, is on land belonging to 
the United States. It was a matter of seri- 
ous reflection with me how I could secure 
to the Government certain rents or fees for 
the privilege of procuring this gold; but 
upon considering the large extent of the 
country, the character of the people engaged^ 
and the small scattered force at my command^ 
I am resolved not to interfere, but permit 
all to work freely." It is not recorded 
whether the resolute colonel was conscious 
of the humor of his resolution. This early 
suggestion of conservation was, under the 
circumstances, manifestly academic. 

20 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

The Supreme Court of the United 
States, in commenting on the singular sit- 
uation in which Colonel Mason found him- 
self, clearly and forcefully states his pre- 
dicament. ''His position,'' says that Court, 
"was unlike anything that had preceded it in 
the history of our country. ... It was not 
without its difficulties, both as regards the 
principle upon which he should act, and 
the actual state of affairs in California. 
He knew that the Mexican inhabitants of 
it had been remitted by the treaty of peace 
to those municipal laws and usages which 
prevailed among them before the terri- 
tory had been ceded to the United States, 
but that a state of things and population 
had grown up during the war, and after 
the treaty of peace, which made some 
other authority necessary to maintain the 
rights of the ceded inhabitants and of im- 
migrants, from misrule and violence. He 
may not have comprehended fully the prin- 

21 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

ciple applicable to what he might rightly 
do in such a case, but he felt rightly and 
acted accordingly. He determined, in the 
absence of all instruction, to maintain the 
existing government. The territory had 
been ceded as a conquest, and was to be 
preserved and governed as such until the 
sovereignty to which it had passed had 
legislated for it. That sovereignty was the 
United States, under the Constitution, 
by which power had been given to Con- 
gress to dispose of and make all needful 
rules and regulations respecting the terri- 
tory or other property belonging to the 
United States, with the power also to ad- 
mit new states into this Union, with only 
such limitations as are expressed in the 
section in which this power is given. The 
government, of which Colonel Mason was 
the executive, had its origin in the lawful 
exercise of a belligerent right over a con- 
quered territory. It had been instituted 

22 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

during the war by the command of the 
President of the United States. It was 
the government when the territory was 
ceded as a conquest, and it did not cease, 
as a matter of course, or as a necessary 
consequence of the restoration of peace. 
The President might have dissolved it by 
withdrawing the army and navy officers 
who administered it, but he did not do so. 
Congress could have put an end to it, but 
that was not done. The right inference 
from the inaction of both is, that it was 
meant to be continued until it had been 
legislatively changed. No presumption of 
a contrary intention can be made. What- 
ever may have been the causes of delay, 
it must be presumed that the delay was 
consistent with the true policy of the 
Government.'' ^ 

This guess, being the last guess, must 
now be taken as authoritative. 



*Cross vs. Harrison, 16 Howard (57 U. S.), 164, 192. 

23 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

The prospectors and miners were, then, 
in the start, simply trespassers upon the 
public lands as against the Government of 
the United States, with no laws to guide, 
restrain or protect them, and with nothing 
to fear from the military authorities. They 
were equal to the occasion. The instinct 
of organization was a part of their hered- 
ity. Professor Macy, in a treatise issued 
by Johns Hopkins University, once wrote: 
" It has been said that if three Americans 
meet to talk over an item of business, the 
first thing they do is to organize." 

"Finding themselves far from the legal 
traditions and restraints of the settled 
East," said the report of the Public Land 
Commission of 1880, *'in a pathless wilder- 
ness, under the feverish excitement of an 
industry as swift and full of chance as the 
throwing of dice, the adventurers of 1849 
spontaneously instituted neighborhood or 
district codes of regulation, which were 

24 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

simply meant to define and protect a brief 
possessory ownership. The ravines and 
river bars which held the placer gold were 
valueless for settlement or home-making, 
but were splendid stakes to hold for a few 
short seasons and gamble with nature for 
wealth or ruin. 

*'In the absence of State and Federal 
laws competent to meet the novel industry, 
and with the inbred respect for equitable 
adjustments of rights between man and 
man, the miners sought only to secure 
equitable rights and protection from rob- 
bery by a simple agreement as to the maxi- 
mum size of a surface claim, trusting, with 
a well-founded confidence, that no machin- 
ery was necessary to enforce their regu- 
lations other than the swift, rough blows 
of public opinion. The gold-seekers were 
not long in realizing that the source of the 
dust which had worked its way into the 
sands and bars, and distributed its pre- 

25 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

cious particles over the bedrocks of rivers, 
v^as derived from solid quartz veins, which 
w^ere thin sheets of mineral material in- 
closed in the foundation rocks of the coun- 
try. Still in advance of any enactments by 
legislature or Congress, the common sense 
of the miners, v^hich had proved strong 
enough to govern with wisdom the owner- 
ship of placer mines, rose to meet the ques- 
tion of lode claims and sheet-like veins of 
quartz, and provided that a claim should 
consist of a certain horizontal block of the 
vein, however it might run, but extending 
indefinitely downward, with a strip of sur- 
face on, or embracing the vein's outcrop, 
for the placing of necessary machinery 
and buildings. Under this theory, the lode 
was the property, and the surface became 
a mere easement. 

*'This early California theory of a min- 
ing claim, consisting of a certain number 
of running feet of vein, with a strip of land 

26 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

covering the surface length of the claim, 
is the obvious foundation for the Federal 
legislation and present system of public 
disposition and private ownership of the 
mineral lands west of the Missouri River. 
Contrasted with this is the mode of dis- 
position of mineral-bearing lands east of 
the Missouri River, where the common 
law has been the rule, and where the sur- 
face tract has always carried with it all 
minerals vertically below it. 

"The great coal, copper, lead and zinc 
wealth east of the Rocky Mountains has 
all passed with the surface titles, and there 
can be little doubt if California had been 
contiguous to the eastern metallic regions, 
and its mineral development progressed 
naturally with the advantage of home- 
making settlements, the power of common- 
law precedent would have governed its 
whole mining history. But California was 
one of these extraordinary historic excep- 

27 



CALIFORNIA IIQMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

tions that defy precedent and create orig- 
inal modes of life and law. And since the 
developers of the great precious metal 
mining of the Far West have, for the most 
part, swarmed out of the California hive, 
California ideas have not only been every- 
where dominant over the field of the indus- 
try, but have stemmed the tide of Federal 
land policy, and given us a statute-book 
with English common law in force over 
half the land and California common law 
ruling in the other/' 

I have spoken of these two incidents, 
the one of the peaceable civilization of the 
missions, and the other of the strenuous 
life issuing in the adoption of the mining 
law, as illustrative incidents of the variety 
of California history. Let me briefly speak 
of a third one, California's method of get- 
ting into the Union. But two other states 
at the present time celebrate the anniver- 
sary of their admission into the Union; 

28 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

the reason for California's celebration of 
that anniversary is well founded. The delay 
incident to the admission of California into 
the Union as a State was precipitated by 
the tense struggle then raging in Congress 
between the North and the South. The 
admission of Wisconsin had made a tie, 
fifteen free states and fifteen slave states. 
The destiny of the nation hung upon the 
result of that issue, and when California 
finally entered the Union, it came in as the 
sixteenth free State, forever destroyed the 
equilibrium between the North and the 
South, and made the Civil War practically 
inevitable. The debate was a battle of 
giants. Webster, Clay and Calhoun all 
took part in it. Calhoun had arisen from 
his death-bed to fight the admission of 
California, and, upon reaching his seat in 
the Senate, found himself so overcome 
with weakness and pain that he had Ma- 
son of Virginia read the speech he had 

29 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

prepared in writing. Webster atoned for 
his hostility to the Paciiic Coast before the 
Mexican War by answering Calhoun. ''I 
do not hesitate to avow in the presence of 
the living God that if you seek to drive us 
from California ... I am for disunion," 
declared Robert Toombs, of Georgia, to 
an applauding House. ''The unity of our 
empire hangs upon the decision of this 
day," answered Seward in the Senate. 
National history was being made with a 
vengeance, and California was the theme. 
The contest was an inspiring one, and a 
reading of the Congressional Record cov- 
ering the period makes a Californian's 
blood tingle with the intensity of it all.* 

* "In 1850 the Congress of the United States passed 
what is called a series of compromise measures. Among 
them was a fugitive slave law, the indemnity to Texas, 
the creation of territories in Utah and New Mexico, the 
admission of California, and the change in the Texas 
boundary. Four of them had direct relation to the ques- 
tion of slavery, and one was the admission of this State, 
Being in Congress, as a member of the House, at that 
time, I know well what you remember. The admission 

30 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

The struggle had been so prolonged, 
however, that the people upon this coast, 
far removed from the scene of it, and feel- 
ing more than all else that they were en- 
titled to be protected by a system of laws, 
had grown impatient. They had finally 
proceeded in a characteristically Califor- 
nian way. They had met in legislative as- 
sembly and proclaimed: "It is the duty of 
the Government of the United States to 
give us laws; and when that duty is not 
performed, one of the clearest rights we 
have left is to govern ourselves." 

The first provisional government meet- 
ing was held in the pueblo of San Jose, De- 
cember 11, 1848, and unanimously recom- 
mended that a general convention be held 
at the pueblo of San Jose on the second 



of California as a State was delayed for some nine or 
ten months, because the leaders of the Pro-Slavery 
Party were determined to secure their own way on all 
the other measures before California should be admit- 
ted."— E. D. Baker, Forest Hill speech, Aug. 19, 1859. 

31 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Monday of January following. At San 
Francisco a similar provisional meeting 
was held, though the date of the proposed 
convention was fixed for the first Monday 
in March, 1849, and afterward changed 
to the first Monday in August. 

The various assemblies which had 
placed other conditions and fixed other 
dates and places for holding the same 
gave way, and a general election was 
finally held under the provisions of a proc- 
lamation issued by General Bennet Riley, 
the United States General commanding, a 
proclamation for the issuance of which 
there was no legislative warrant whatever. 
While the Legislative Assembly of San 
Francisco recognized his military author- 
ity, in which capacity he was not formi- 
dable, it did not recognize his civil power. 
General Riley, however, with that rare di- 
plomacy which seems to have attached to 
all Federal military people when acting on 

32 



C ALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

the Pacific Coast, realizing that any or- 
ganized government that proceeded from 
an orderly concourse of the people was 
preferable to the exasperating condition in 
which the community was left to face its 
increasing problem under Congressional 
inaction, himself issued the proclamation 
for a general convention, which is itself 
a gem. The delegates met in Monterey, at 
Colton Hall, on the 1st of September, and 
organized on the 3d of September, 1849. 
* The convention was one of the keenest 
and most intelligent that ever assembled 
for the fulfillment of a legislative responsi- 
bility. Six of the delegates had resided in 
California less than six months, while only 
twenty-one, exclusive of the seven native 
Californians, had resided here for more 
than three years. The average age of all 
the delegates was 36 years. The debates 
of that convention should be familiar to 
every citizen of this State. No Californian 

33 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

should be unfamiliar with the great de- 
bate on what was to constitute the east- 
ern boundary of the State of California, a 
debate accompanied by an intensity of feel- 
ing which in the end almost wrecked the 
convention. The dramatic scenes wrought 
by the patriotism that saved the wrecking 
of the convention stand out in bold relief. 
The constitution adopted by this conven- 
tion was ratified November 13, 1849, and, 
at the same election, an entire State and 
legislative ticket, with two representatives 
in Congress, was chosen. The senators and 
assemblymen elect met in San Jose on De- 
cember 15, 1849. On December 20, 1849, 
the State government of California was es- 
tablished and Governor Peter H. Burnett 
was inaugurated as the first Governor of 
the State of California, and soon there- 
after William M. Gwin and John C. Fre- 
mont were elected the first United States 
Senators of the State of California. Notwith- 

34 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

standing the fact that there had never been 
any territorial form of government, not- 
withstanding the fact that California had 
not yet been admitted into the Union, 
these men v^^ere all elected as members of 
the State government^ and the United States 
Senators and members of Congress started 
for Washington to help get the State ad- 
mitted. 

Immediately upon the inauguration of 
Governor Burnett, General Riley issued 
this remarkable proclamation: 

"To the People of California: A new 
executive having been elected and installed 
into office, in accordance with the provi- 
sions of the Constitution of the State, the 
undersigned hereby resigns his powers as 
Governor of California. In thus dissolving 
his official connection with the people of 
this country he would tender to them his 
heart-felt thanks for their many kind at- 
tentions and for the uniform support 

35 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

which they have given to the measures of 
his administration. The principal object 
of all his wishes is now accomplished — 
the people have a government of their own 
choice, and one which, under the favor of 
Divine Providence, will secure their own 
prosperity and happiness and the perma- 
nent welfare of the new State/' 

No matter what the legal objections to 
this course might be, notwithstanding the 
fact that Congress had as yet passed no 
bill for the admission of California as a 
State into the Union, and might never pass 
one, California broke all precedents by de- 
claring itself a State, and a free State at 
that, and sent its representatives to Wash- 
ington to hurry up the passage of the bill 
which should admit it into the Union. 

The brilliant audacity of California's 
method of admission into the Union stands 
without parallel in the history of the na- 
tion. Outside of the original thirteen colo- 

36 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

nies, she was the only State carved out of 
the national domain which was admitted 
into the Union without a previous enabling 
act or territorial apprenticeship. What was 
called the State of Deseret tried it and 
failed, and the annexation of Texas was 
the annexation of a foreign republic. The 
so-called State of Transylvania and State 
of Franklin had been attempted secessions 
of western counties of the original states 
of Virginia and North Carolina, respec- 
tively, and their abortive attempts at ad- 
mission addressed to the Continental Con- 
gress, and not to the Congress of the 
United States. With full right, then, did 
California, by express resolution spreading 
the explanation upon the minutes of her 
constitutional convention,* avowedly place 
upon her great seal her Minerva — her 



*J. Ross Browne: Debates in the Convention of Cali- 
fornia on the Formation of the Constitution in 1849, pp. 
304, 322, 323. 

37 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

'' robed goddess-in-arms" — ^^not as the god- 
dess of wisdom, not as the goddess of war, 
but to signify that as Minerva was not 
born, but sprang full-armed from the brain 
of Jupiter, so California, without territo- 
rial childhood, sprang full-grown into the 
sisterhood of states. 

When it is remembered that California 
was not admitted into the Union till Sep- 
tember 9, 1850, and yet that the first ses- 
sion of its State Legislature had met, legis- 
lated, and adjourned by April 22, 1850, some 
appreciation may be had of the speed limit 
— if there was a limit. The record of the 
naive self-sufficiency of that Legislature is 
little short of amazing. 

On February 9, 1850, seven months be- 
fore the admission of the State, it coolly 
passed the following resolution: "That 
the Governor be, and he is hereby au- 
thorized and requested, to cause to be 
procured, and prepared in the manner 

38 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

prescribed by the Washington Monument 
Association, a block of CaHfornia marble, 
cinnabar, gold quartz or granite of suitable 
dimensions, with the word 'California' 
chiseled on its face, and that he cause the 
same to be forwarded to the managers of 
the Washington Monument Association, 
in the city of Washington, District of 
Columbia, to constitute a portion of the 
monument now being erected in that city 
to the memory of George Washington." 
California did not intend to be absent from 
any feast, or left out of any procession — 
not if she knew it. Looking back now, our 
belief is that the only reason she required 
the word '* California," instead of the 
words " State of California," to be chiseled 
on the stone was that the rules of the 
Monument Association probably prohib- 
ited any State from chiseling on the stone 
contributed by it any words except the 
mere name of the State itself. And the 

39 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

resolution was obeyed — the stone was cut 
from a marble-bed on a ranch just outside 
Placerville, and is now in the monument! 

On April 13, 1850, nearly five months 
before California was admitted into the 
Union, that Legislature gaily passed an 
act consisting of this provision: "The com- 
mon law of England, so far as it is not 
repugnant to or inconsistent with the Con- 
stitution of the United States, or the Con- 
stitution or laws of the State of California, 
shall be the rule of the decision in all the 
courts of the State/' 

Among other things, three joint resolu- 
tions were passed, one demanding of the 
Federal Government not only a change in 
the manner of transporting the mails, but 
also in the manner of their distribution 
at San Francisco, a second urging upon 
Congress the importance of authorizing, as 
soon as practicable, the construction of a 
national railroad from the Pacific Ocean to the 

40 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Mississippi River — not from the Mississippi 
River to the Pacific Ocean, but from the 
Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River — 
and a third urging appropriate grants of 
land by the General Government to each 
commissioned officer of the Army of the 
United States v^ho had faithfully and hon- 
orably served out a complete term of ser- 
vice in the v^^ar v^ith Mexico. Each of the 
last two resolutions, with grim determina- 
tion, and without a suspicion of humor, 
contained this further resolution: "That 
His Excellency, the Governor, be re- 
quested to forward to each of our Senators 
and Representatives in Congress, a certi- 
fied copy of this joint resolution." 

These resolutions were passed five 
months before the State was admitted into 
the Union. If the Senators and Represen- 
tatives were not yet actually "in Congress" 
— well, they were at least in Washington — 
and busy. The desire to be admitted into 

41 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC ANU RESOURCEFUL 

the Union had developed into a yearning 
to be considered a part of the Union, had 
ripened into the conviction that the State 
was, potentially at least, actually a part of 
the Union, a yearning and a conviction 
that became almost pathetic in their inten- 
sity. The Legislature adjourned, and for 
nearly five months the population of San 
Francisco assembled on the Plaza on the ar- 
rival of every Panama steamer, v^aiting — 
vsraiting — v^aiting for the ansv^er, v^hich, 
when it did come in the following October, 
was celebrated with an abandon of joy 
that has never been equaled on any suc- 
ceeding Ninth of September. 

It is indefensible that in the face of in- 
cidents of our history such as these Cal- 
ifornians should be ignorant of the lives 
and experiences of those who preceded 
them on this coast. The history of their 
experiences is a part of the history of the 
nation, and the record of the achievement 

42 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

of the empire-builders of this coast is one 
that inspires civic pride and a reverence 
for their memories. Why should the story 
remain practically unknown? Why should 
every little unimportant detail of the petty 
incidents of Queen Anne's War, and King 
Philip's War, and Braddock's campaign be 
crammed into the heads of children who 
until lately never heard the name of Por- 
tola? The beautiful story of Paul Revere's 
ride is known to everyone, but how many 
know the story of the invincible determi- 
nation in the building of Ugarte's ship?* 
William Penn's honest treatment of the 
Indians is a household word to people who 
never knew of the existence of Galvez or 
Junipero Serra. The story of the hardships 
of the New England pilgrims in the first 

* The 'Triunfo de la Cruz" was begun July 16, 1719, and 
finally launched at Mulege, near Loreto, Lower California, 
on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, Sept. 14, 1719, 
on its mission to determine whether California was an 
island, as described and delineated in many official ac- 
counts and maps of the period. 

43 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

winter on the ''stern and rock-bound coast'* 
of Massachusetts, is not more pitiful than 
that of the fate of the immigrants at Don- 
ner Lake. The thoughtful magnanimity 
of Captain Philip of the ^' Texas " in the 
moment of victory, in the sea-fight at 
Santiago, when he checked his men — 
"Don't cheer, boys; the poor fellows are 
drowning " — is enshrined in the hearts 
of Americans that never thrilled with 
pride at Commodore Sloat's solemn and 
patriotic proclamation upon landing his 
sailors to hoist the colors at Monterey, — 
a proclamation as fine and dignified as a 
ritual, that should be committed to mem- 
ory, as a part of his education, by every 
schoolboy in California.* Longfellow's 

*The original Proclamation of Commodore Sloat, July 
7, 1846, signed by his own hand, here produced, is pre- 
served in Golden Gate Park Museum, San Francisco, to 
whose Curator, Mr. George Barron, it was recently pre- 
sented in person as authentic by the lately deceased Rev. 
S. H. Willey, the chaplain of the Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1849 in Colton Hall. 

44 




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JIHl.. .-^^ 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

''Courtship of Miles Standish and Pris- 
cilla" is found in every book of declama- 
tions, and Bret Harte's poem of the tragic 
love story of Rezanov and Concha Ar- 
giiello only in complete editions of his 
works.* Why herald the ridiculous at- 
tempt of Rhode Island to keep out of the 
Union, and not acclaim the splendid effort 
of California to break into it? 

The importance to any community of 
its local history being incorporated in 
the national story in its proper proportion 
and perspective cannot be overestimated. 
When in all the ten volumes of Thomas 
B. Reed's magnificent collection, entitled 
"Modern Eloquence," we find but one 
speech that was delivered in California, 
and that, while the ancient and admired 
anecdotage of Chauncey Depew is printed 
in detail, the flaming eloquence of E. D. 
Baker is absolutely ignored, and the only 

* See Appendices A and B. 

45 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

discourse reported of Thomas Starr King 
is one that he delivered in Boston, it is 
time for the dwellers on these Western 
shores to ask themselves whether these 
things have all happened by accident, or 
whether the older commonwealths of this 
country have been moved by a pride in 
their history and in their traditions to take 
such measures for their preservation and 
for the promotion of their publication as to 
put us to shame. 

Let me not be misunderstood. I would 
detract nothing from the glory of other 
sections of the country. I would minimize 
nothing of any State's accomplishment. 
Some of them have a record that is almost 
a synonym for patriotism. Their tradition 
is our inheritance; their achievement is 
our gain. Wisconsin cannot become a ver- 
itable workshop of social and economic 
experiment without the nation being the 
beneficiary. New England does not enrich 

46 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

her own literat*ure without shedding lus- 
ter on the Hterature of the nation. They 
and theirs belong also to us and to ours. 
Least of all, do I forget the old Bay State 
and her high tradition — State of Hancock 
and Warren, of John Quincy Adams and 
Webster, of Sumner and Phillips and Gar- 
rison and John A. Andrew, of Longfellow 
and Lowell and Whittier and Holmes. 
Her hopes are my hopes; her fears are my 
fears. May my heart cease its beating if, 
in any presence or under any pressure, it 
fail to respond an Amen to the Puritan's 
prayer: "God save the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts." 

But if they belong to us, we also belong 
to them. If their traditions belong to us, 
so also our tradition belongs to them. We 
should simply strive that California shall 
be given her proper proportionate place in 
the history of the country. We do not find 
fault with them for having taken the 

47 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

means of heralding abroad their story — 
we commend them for it. We point to 
their activity so as to arouse our own 
people from their amazing inaction. What 
have we of California done to collect, pre- 
serve and diffuse information relating to 
the history of our State? And what have 
other commonwealths done? 

The California State Historical Society, 
first organized in 1853, and incorporated 
in 1876, was in active existence from 1886 
to 1894, and published some valuable his- 
torical material, including Father Palou's 
"Noticias,'' Doyle's '^History of the Pious 
Fund,'' Willey's "History of the College of 
California" and some interesting papers of 
Martin Kellogg, George Davidson, Ber- 
nard Moses, William Carey Jones and T. 
H. Hittell. From that time it has had no 
active existence. There has not been a 
meeting of its board of directors since 1893, 
and since then most of them have died. It 

48 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

has no maps and no manuscripts, and its 
library of 500 printed volumes was stored 
away in San Francisco, in the basement 
cellar of the gentleman who is still nomi- 
nally its president, until two years ago. It 
never owned a building in which to do its 
work, was never endowed, and to all in- 
tents and purposes has been dead for 
twenty years. 

When we look beyond the Rockies, how- 
ever, we begin to appreciate the work that 
is being done by the State historical soci- 
eties organized for the purpose of collect- 
ing, preserving and diffusing historical in- 
formation concerning their respective 
states. The statistics outside California, 
unless otherwise indicated, are down to 
1905. The Massachusetts and Pennsyl- 
vania societies are prototypes of the pri- 
vately organized and endowed organiza- 
tions of the Eastern states, which, without 
official patronage, have attained strength, 

49 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

dignity and a high degree of usefulness, 
while Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and 
Kansas similarly stand for the State-sup- 
ported institutions of the West. Twelve 
societies or departments own their own 
halls — those valued at $100,000 or over, 
being Wisconsin, $610,000; Iowa, $400,- 
000; Pennsylvania (1910), $340,000; Mas- 
sachusetts, $225,000; and Kansas, $200,000. 
Thirteen are housed in their respective 
State capitols, seven are quartered in State 
universities, and six are in other public 
buildings. The largest State appropriations 
are: Wisconsin (1910), $31,000; Minneso- 
ta, $20,000; and Iowa (1910), $12,000. 
The Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and 
Wisconsin societies are, of course, the 
wealthiest in endowments; possessing, re- 
spectively (1912), $420,600, $170,000, and 
(1910), $63,000 in vested funds. The larg- 
est libraries are Pennsylvania (1910), 285,- 
000 titles; Wisconsin (1910), 332,000; 

50 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Massachusetts (1912), 170,000; Kansas 
(1910), 191,000; and New Hampshire 
(1910), 117,500. 

Only a Httle less important in degree 
are a large number of historical societies 
which represent some town or section. For 
example: The Essex Institute of Salem, 
Massachusetts, with its income of (1913) 
$15,000, library of 400,000 titles, and build- 
ing valued at $175,000; New York (City) 
Historical Society, with 1057 members, 
endowment fund aggregating $236,000, 
yearly income of $12,000, and a building 
costing $400,000; the Chicago Historical 
Society, with a library of 130,000 titles, 
housed in a $185,000 building and sup- 
ported by endowment funds aggregating 
$111,814; the Long Island Historical 
Society of Brooklyn, with (1912) 102,500 
titles in its own building; the Western 
Reserve of Cleveland, with 60,000 titles in 
a $55,000 building; the Worcester (Massa- 

51 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

chusetts) Society of Antiquities, housing 
110,000 titles within a building valued at 
$50,000; and the Buffalo Historical So- 
ciety, which has a library of 34,000 titles 
in a $200,000 building and receives a mu- 
nicipal grant of $5,000 and incidental ex- 
penses per annum. These are simply the 
most highly endowed. Every important 
town and city in those sections of the coun- 
try are represented. In the State of Massa- 
chusetts alone, there are, besides its State 
Historical Society, thirty-six local histori- 
cal societies, all of them alive and active 
and doing good work. The only historical 
societies worthy of the name in California, 
outside of the institution I shall refer to 
later on, are the Historical Society of 
Southern California, in Los Angeles, with 
a membership of fifty, now owning a li- 
brary of 6,000 titles, housed in the Museum 
of History, Science and Art in Exposition 
Park, owned by the county, with the pub- 

52 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

lication of eight volumes of local history 
to its credit, and the Archeological Insti- 
tution of the Southwest, also of Los An- 
geles, the latter institution, however, be- 
ing not exclusively a historical society. 

I submit to you, as Californians, 
whether this is a record in which we can 
take any pride. With the exception of the 
pitiful attempts of its loyal friends from 
time to time to revive the California His- 
torical Society, absolutely no organization 
work whatever, except what has lately 
been initiated at Berkeley, has been done 
by any public institution to promote the 
publication of California history or the col- 
lection of material therefor. With a history 
such as ours, with its halo of romance, 
with its peculiarity of incident, with its 
epoch-making significance, is it not a burn- 
ing shame that our people have not long 
ago, either through private endowment 
or through public institutions, taken as 

53 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

much pride in the preservation of our his- 
tory as its makers did in the creation of 
it? Is it not time that civic societies in 
every section of this State should combine 
and v^ork together for the creation of a 
pubhc sentiment w^hich v^ill support and 
uphold any institution that will strive to 
perpetuate the record of the history of this 
great commonv^ealth? 

Though there has been no sustained or 
organized effort on the part of the State, 
or of any community in the State, to recog- 
nize the duty of collecting and preserving 
the priceless records of its historical 
growth, yet, by the luck that often attends 
improvidence, we have the nucleus of a 
library which goes far toward offsetting 
our culpable indifference. 

One of the great fires that swept San 
Francisco in its early stages just missed 
the Bancroft Library, then at the corner 
of Merchant and Montgomery streets. The 

54 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

later fire that burned the building on Mar- 
ket Street, near Third, next door to the 
History Building, again barely missed the 
Bancroft Library. And when it was moved 
to the building especially constructed for it 
at Valencia and Mission streets, the great 
conflagration of the 18th of April, 1906, 
just failed to reach it. In this State it had 
remained for a private individual, by his 
life work, to collect and preserve a library 
that to the State of California is almost 
priceless in value. This magnificent library 
the State of California has recently pur- 
chased and installed in the California 
Building, at the State University, where 
its usefulness is being developed by the 
Academy of Pacific Coast History, an 
association organized in connection with 
the history work of the University. By a 
series of happy accidents, then, we are in 
a position to start with as great a nucleus 
of its historical data as any common- 

55 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

wealth ever had. There remains the great 
work of cataloguing and publishing, ren- 
dering available to the investigation of 
scholarship this mass of original data, and 
the State should immediately provide the 
liberal fund necessary for the mechanical 
and clerical administrative work. 

While the State is completing the trust 
with reference to the material it already 
has on hand, the all-destroying march of 
Time still goes swiftly on, however. Man- 
uscripts in foreign lands are fading and 
being lost, parchments are becoming 
moth-eaten or mildewed, whole archives 
without duplicate are at the mercy of a 
mob, or a revolution, or a conflagration, 
and a generation of men and women still 
alive are quickly passing away, carrying 
with them an ''unsung Iliad" of the Sierras 
and the plains. In the presence of these 
facts, we should not stand idle. One great 
fraternal organization has already done, 

56 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

and is still loyally doing, more than its 
share. In the great work of endowing 
fellowships in Pacific Coast history at 
Berkeley there is room enough for all. 
Here is an opportunity for private munifi- 
cence. A fine civism will not find a more 
pressing necessity, or a more splendid op- 
portunity. An endowment of $100,000 in- 
vested in five per cent bonds will yield an 
annual fellowship fund of $5,000. A citizen 
looking for an opportunity to do some- 
thing worth while could find few wor- 
thier objects. The fruit of such an endow- 
ment may not be as enduring as a noble 
campanile, or an incomparable Greek the- 
ater, yet, in a sense, it will be more last- 
ing than either, for facts become history, 
and history survives, when campaniles 
fall and Greek theaters are ground to 
powder. 

It may be that we have not realized that, 
as it took conscious eflfort to create the 

57 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

history of the Pacific Coast, it will take 
conscious effort to see that it is recorded 
and given its proper place in the history 
of the country at large. If we have not 
understood this fact, the recital of the ac- 
tivities of historical societies and other 
agencies in the East should admonish us 
that it is time, it has long been time, for 
us to be up and doing. The record of the 
history that is now in the making will take 
care of itself, and the machinery is at hand 
for its preservation. If we shall become the 
center of a new culture, be assured that it 
will be its own press-agent. If we shall see 
grow into fruition a new music among the 
redwoods of our Bohemian Grove, there 
are signs that the world will not be kept 
ignorant of its origin. Literature reflect- 
ing local color will survive as the historic 
basis for it is known and made secure. The 
debt we owe to Bret Harte for " The Out- 
casts of Poker Flat," " The Luck of Roar- 

58 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

ing Camp," and all the individual types his 
genius made live again, to Helen Hunt 
Jackson for her immortal "Ramona," to 
Charles Fletcher Lummis for his faithful 
chronicles of splendid pioneering and re- 
search, v^ill only be more appreciated as 
our knowledge of the historic past be- 
comes more accurate and sure. 

But it is the record of that very past, 
the record of our brief, eventful and en- 
thralling past, that concerns us now. Mon- 
uments and reminders of it exist on every 
side. The record also exists, but scattered 
over the face of the earth, and it has not 
yet been collected and transcribed. This 
history cannot be properly taught until it 
is properly written, and it cannot be prop- 
erly written until all essential sources shall 
have been explored. Mines of information 
are still open that may soon be closed, per- 
haps :orever. Let us promote such action 
that no element of the grand drama of 

59 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

world-politics once played on these Pa- 
cific shores shall be lost. Let us see to it, 
also, that our fathers' high achievement in 
a later day shall not be unknown to their 
descendants. In this cause, let us, with 
hearts courageous and minds determined, 
each make good his "full measure of de- 
votion." Thus, may California's story be- 
come known of all Americans, and sink 
into the hearts of a grateful people. 



60 



\ 



APPENDIX A. 

THE LOVE-STORY OF CONCHA 
ARGUELLO. 

[The occasion of the following remarks was the placing 
of a bronze tablet upon the oldest adobe building in 
San Francisco, the former residence of the Co- 
mandante, now the Officers' Club, at the Presidio, 
under the auspices of the California Historical Land- 
marks League, on Serra Day, November 24, 1913. 
Maria de la Concepcion Marcela Argiiello (pronounced 
Arg-wail'-yo), daughter of Don Jose Dario Arguello, the 
Comandante of the Presidio, and his wife, Maria Ygnacia 
Moraga, was born at this Presidio, February 19, 1791 
(Original Baptismal Records of Old Mission Dolores, 
vol. 1, fol. 96, No. 931). The dates of Feb. 26, 1790, given 
by Bancroft, founded on mere family correspondence, 
and of Feb. 13, 1791, given by Mary Graham, founded 
upon a mistaken reading of the baptismal record, are 
both incorrect. The Spanish pet-name for Concepcion 
(pronounced Con-sep-se-own', with the accent on the 
last syllable) is Concha (pronounced Cone-cha, the 
accent strongly on the first syllable, and the cha as in 
Charles), and its diminutives are Conchita and Con- 
chitita. 

Her father was afterward transferred to Santa Barbara, 
and from there, while he was temporary Governor 
of California, under the Spanish regime, on Dec. 31, 
1814, appointed Governor of Lower California. Her 
brother, Luis Antonio Argiiello, born June 21, 1784, 
also at the Presidio, died March 27, 1830. He entered 

61 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

the military service as cadet, Sept. 6, 1799; was alferez 
(ensign), Dec. 23, 1800; lieutenant, March 10, 1806; 
succeeded his father as Comandante of San Fran- 
cisco in 1806; was the first Governor of California 
under Mexican rule, and is buried in the old Mission 
Dolores cemetery, where the finest monument in the 
cemetery stands erected to his memory.] 

I am glad to see this bronze tablet affixed to 
this noble adobe building. I take it, that when 
some of the wooden eye-sores that here abound 
are torn down, in the necessary beautification 
that should precede 1915, this old historic build- 
ing — a monurnent to Spanish chivalry and hos- 
pitality — will be spared. We have too few of 
them left to lose any of them now. And of all 
buildings in the world, the Presidio army post 
should guard this one with jealous care, for here 
was enacted one of the greatest, sweetest, most 
tragic love stories of the world — a story which 
is all the Presidio's own, and which it does not 
have to share with any other army post. 

To you, men of the army, my appeal ought to 
be an easy one. You have no desire to escape 
the soft impeachment that the profession of arms 
has ever been susceptible to the charms of wom- 
an. The relation of Mars to Venus is not simply 
a legend of history, is founded on no mere mythol- 
ogy — their relationship is as sure as the firma- 
ment, and their orbits are sometimes very close 
together. 

62 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

There is one name that should be the perennial 
toast of the men of this Presidio. We have just 
celebrated by a splendid pageant the four-hun- 
dredth anniversary of the discovery of the Pacific 
Ocean by Balboa, and we chose for queen of that 
ceremony a beautiful girl by the name of Con- 
chita. There was another Conchita once, the 
daughter of the comandante of this Presidio, the 
bewitching, the beautiful, the radiant Concha 
Argiiello. 

In this old Presidio she was born. In the old 
Mission Dolores she was christened. Here, it is 
told, that in the merry exuberance of her inno- 
cent babyhood, she danced instead of prayed be- 
fore the shrine. In the glory of these sunrises and 
day-vistas and sunsets, she passed her girlhood 
and bloomed into womanhood. In this old adobe 
building she queened it supremely. Here she 
presided at every hospitality; here she was the 
leader of every fiesta. 

To this bay, on the 8th of April, 1806,* in 
the absence of her stern old father in Monterey, 

* G. H. von Langsdorff, Voyages and Travels in Various 
Parts of the World (Henry Colburn, London, 1814), part 
2, page 150. Langsdorff, of course, gives it as March 28, 
1806, old style, in that year twelve days earlier than our 
calendar west of the 180th degree of longitude, and eleven 
days earlier than our calendar east of that degree. H. H. 
Bancroft states that "the loss of a day in coming eastward 
from St. Petersburg was never taken into account until 

63 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

and while the Presidio was under the temporary 
command of her brother Luis, there came from 
the north the "Juno," the vessel of the Russian 
Chamberlain Rezanov, his secret mission an in- 
trigue of some kind concerning this wonderland, 
for the benefit of the great Czar at St. Peters- 
burg. He found no difficulty in coming ashore. 
Father was away. Brother was kind. Besides, 
the Russian marines looked good, and the offi- 
cers knew how to dance as only military men 
know how to dance. The hospitality was Castil- 
ian, unaffected, intimate, and at the evenings' 
dances in this old building their barrego was 
more graceful than any inartistic tango, and in 
the teaching of the waltz by the Russians — there 
was no '^ hesitation." 



Alaska was transferred to the United States" (Bancroft, 
Hist, of California, II, page 299, foot-note 9). Certainly, 
Langsdorff makes no such allowance in his narrative of old- 
style dates, and in the only place east of the 180th parallel 
where he computes the corresponding new style he adds 
eleven days, instead of twelve (Voyages and Travels, II, page 
136). Bancroft adopts the date of April Sth, basing it on the 
Tikhmenef narrative. Richman and Eldredge follow him in 
preferring the Tikhmenef narrative to the Langsdorff nar- 
rative as a basis, though they differ from each other in re- 
ducing it to the new style from the old style, Richman 
making it April Sth, following Bancroft in this regard also, 
and Eldredge making it April 4th. I prefer, with Father 
Engelhardt, to follow as a basis the painstaking German, 
Langsdorff, who kept his diary day by day. 

64 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Then came Love's miracle ; and by the time the 
comandante returned to his post, ten days later, 
the glances of the bright-flashing eyes of the 
daughter had more effectively pulverized the 
original scheme of the chamberlain, than any old 
guns of her father on this fort could have done. 
Their troth was plighted, and, as he belonged 
to the Greek Church, with a lover's abandon, he 
started home to St. Petersburg, the tremendous 
journey of that day by way of Russian America 
and across the plains of Siberia, to obtain his 
Emperor's consent to his marriage. No knight 
of chivalry ever pledged more determined devo- 
tion. He assured even the Governor that, im- 
mediately upon his return to St. Petersburg, he 
would go to Madrid as ambassador extraordinary 
from the Czar, to obviate every kind of misun- 
derstanding between the powers. From there he 
would proceed to Vera Cruz, or some other Span- 
ish harbor in Mexico, and then return to San 
Francisco, to claim his bride. 

On the 2ist of May, about four o'clock in the 
afternoon, the "Juno" weighed anchor for Sitka, 
and in passing the fort, then called the fort of 
San Joaquin, she saluted it with seven guns — and 
received in return a salute of nine. The old chron- 
icler who accompanied the expedition says that 
the Governor, with the whole Argiiello family, 
and several other friends and acquaintances, col- 

65 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUli 

lected at the fort and waived an adieu with hats 
and handkerchiefs.* And one loyal soul stood 
looking seaward, till a vessel's hull sank below 
the horizon. 

How many fair women, through the pitiless 
years, have thus stood — looking seaward! Once 
more the envious Fates prevailed. Unknown to 
his sweetheart, Rezanov died on the overland 
journey from Okhotsk to St. Petersburg, in a 
little town in the snows of central Siberia. With 
a woman's instinctive and unyielding faith, the 
beautiful girl waited and watched for his return, 
waited the long and dreary years till the roses of 
youth faded from her cheeks. True heart, no 
other voice could reach her ear! Dead to all 
allurement, she first joined a secular order, "dedi- 
cating her life to the instructions of the young 
and the consolation of the sick," and finally en- 
tered the Dominican sisterhood, where she gave 
the remainder of her life to the heroic and self- 
effacing service of her order. Not until late in 
life did she have the consolation of learning— and 
then quite by accident — that her lover had not 
been false to her, but had died of a fall from his 
horse on his mission to win her. Long years 



*G. H. von Langsdorff, Voyages and Travels, part 2, 
pages 183, 217. Tikhmenefs narrative would make the 
"Juno" leave on the 19th of May, but Langsdorff was him- 
self aboard and kept a log. 

66 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

afterward she died, in 1857, at the convent of St. 
Catherine; and today, while he sleeps beneath a 
Greek cross in the wilds of Siberia, she is at rest 
beneath a Roman cross in the little Dominican 
cemetery at Benicia, across the Bay.* 

This history is true. These old walls were wit- 
nesses to part of it. These hills and dales were 
part of the setting for their love-drama. One 
picnic was taken by boat to what is now called 
the Island of Belvedere yonder. One horseback 
outing was taken to the picturesque canon of San 
Andres, so named by Captain Rivera and Father 
Palou in 1774. Gertrude Atherton has given us 



*Nicolai Petrovich Rezanov, Chamberlain to the Czar, 
died March 13, 1807 (March 1, old style), at the little town 
of Krasnoiarsk, capital of the Province of Yenisseisk, now 
a station on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, where his body 
is still interred. Von Langsdorff visited his grave Dec. 9, 
1807 (Nov. 27, old style), and found a tomb which he de- 
scribed as "a large stone, in the fashion of an altar, but 
without any inscription." (Voyages and Travels, part 2, 
page 385.) Sir George Simpson visited the grave in 1842, 
and states that a tomb had been erected by the Russian 
American Company in 1831, but does not describe it. 
Whether this is a mistake in the date on his part, or 
whether a later and more elaborate tomb displaced the first 
one, I have not yet been able to ascertain. It is certain, 
however, that Sir George Simpson had read von Langs- 
dorff's book. 

The body of Sor Dominga Argiiello, commonly called 
Sister Mary Dominica (Concepcion Argiiello) after her 

67 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

the novel, and Bret Harte has sung the poem, 
founded upon it * 

When we think of the love stories that have 
survived the ages, Alexander and Thais, Pericles 
and Aspasia, Antony and Cleopatra, and all the 
rest of them — some of them a narrative unfit to 
handle with tongs — shall we let this local story- 



death, which occurred Dec. 23, 1857, was first interred in 
the small cemetery in the convent yard, but in the latter 
part of 1897 (Original Annals, St. Catherine's, Benicia), 
when the bodies were removed, it was reinterred in the 
private cemetery of the Dominican order overlooking 
Suisun Bay, on the heights back of the old military bar- 
racks. Her grave is the innermost one, in the second row, 
of the group in the southwesterly corner of the cemetery. 
It is marked by a humble white marble slab, on which is 
graven a little cross with her name and the date of her 
death. This grave deserves to be as well known as that 
of Heloise and Abelard, in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise. 

* "Rezanov," by Gertrude Atherton (John Murray, Lon- 
don). See also Appendix B. The quaint poem of Richard 
E. White to "The Little Dancing Saint" (Overland, May, 
1914) is worthy of mention, though the place of her child- 
hood is mistakenly assumed to be Lower California instead 
of San Francisco. It is to be hoped also that the very 
clever skit of Edward F. O'Day, entitled "The Defeat of 
Rezanov," purely imaginative as a historical incident, but 
with a wealth of local "atmosphere," written for the Fam- 
ily Club, of San Francisco, and produced at one of its 
"Farm Plays," will yet be published, and not buried in the 
archives of a club. 



68 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

die? Shall not America furnish a newer and 
purer standard? If to such a standard Massa- 
chusetts is to contribute the Courtship of Miles 
Standish, may not California contribute the 
Courtship of Rezanov? You men of this army 
post have a peculiar right to proclaim this senti- 
ment; in such an enlistment you, of all men, 
would have the right to unsheathe a flaming 
sword. For this memory of the comandante's 
daughter is yours — yours to cherish, yours to pro- 
tect. In the barracks and on parade, at the dance 
and in the field, this *'one sweet human fancy" be- 
longs to this Presidio; and no court-martial nor 
departmental order can ever take it from you. 




«i^ 



69 



[TRANSLATION OF BAPTISMAL RECORD.] 



Maria de la 

Concepcibn 

Marcela 

Arguello, 

Female 

Spanish 

Infant 

(>5> 



On the 26th day of February of the year 
1791, in the church of this Mission of our 
Holy Patron St. Francis, I solemnly baptized 
a girl bom on the 19th day of the said month, 
the legitimate daughter of Don Jose Argiiello, 
lieutenant-captain, and commander of the 
neighboring royal presidio, a native of the city 
of Queretaro, New Spain, and of Dona Maria 
Ygnacia Moraga, a native of the royal presidio 
of El Altar, Sonora. I gave her the names 
of Maria de la Concepcion Marcela. Her god- 
father was Don Jose de Zuiiiga, lieutenant- 
captain and commander of the royal presidio 
of San Diego, by proxy, authenticated by the 
colonel commandant-inspector and Governor 
of this province, Senor Don Pedro Fages, in 
the presence of two witnesses, namely, Senor 
Manuel de Vargas, sergeant of the company 
of Monterey, and Juan de Dios Ballesteros, 
corporal of the same, delegated in due form to 
Manuel Baronda, corporal of the company of 
this royal presidio of our Holy Patron St. 
Francis, who accepted it, and held the said 
girl in his arms at the time of her baptism. I 
notified him that he was not contracting kinship 
nor the obligations of godfather, and that he 
should so advise his principal, in order that 
the latter might be informed of the spiritual 
kinship and of other obligations contracted, 
according as I explained them to him. And in 
witness whereof, I sign it on the day, month 
and year above given. 

Fray Pedro Benito Cambon (rubric). 



70 



Lz i/^i^f/^i S^amJz. tji/^/ ^z^f z/nie^iuo tj^^.V?^" \x f^ C^liJa9 \k ?ueK<t^.^.;oc e-yv ^ 

%/*1^ ^^^ \^e/<f^ i^Jz/^ ^tS\ ^.^/f.^ifc(j/^«/ c^ <i>^^xv'^tt^^ 






fytej, 










ORIGINAL RECORD OF BAPTISM OF CONCEPCION ARGUELLO 



APPENDIX B. 

CONCEPCION DE ARGUELLO. 

(Presidio de San Francisco, 1806.) 

By Bret Harte. 

I. 

Looking seaward, o'er the sand-hills stands the 

fortress, old and quaint. 
By the San Francisco friars lifted to their patron 

saint, — 

Sponsor to that wondrous city, now apostate to 
the creed. 

On whose youthful walls the Padre saw the an- 
gel's golden reed; 

All its trophies long since scattered, all its blazon 

brushed away; 
And the flag that flies above it but a triumph of 

today. 

N ever scar of siege or battle challenges the wan- 
dering eye. 

Never breach of warlike onset holds the curious 
passer-by ; 

71 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Only one sweet human fancy interweaves its 

threads of gold 
With the plain and homespun present, and a love 

that ne'er grows old; 

Only one thing holds its crumbling walls above 

the meaner dust, — 
Listen to the simple story of a woman's love and 

trust. 

II. 

Count von Resanoff,* the Russian, envoy of the 

mighty Czar, 
Stood beside the deep embrasures, where the 

brazen cannon are. 

He with grave provincial magnates long had held 

serene debate 
On the Treaty of Alliance and the high affairs of 

state ; 



* If the facsimile of the chamberlain's signature, when 
written in Roman alphabetical character, is as set forth in 
part 2 of the Russian publication "Istoritcheskoe Obosrenie 
Obrasovania Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi Kompanii," by P. 
Tikhmenef, published in 1863, by Edward Weimar, in St. 
Petersburg, then the proper spelling is "Rezanov," the 
accent on the penult, and the "v" pronounced like "ff." 

For metrical purposes Bret Harte has here taken the 
same kind of liberty with "Resanoff," and in another poem 
with Portola, as Byron took with Trafalgar, in Child* 
Harold. 

72 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

He from grave provincial magnates oft had 
turned to talk apart 

With the Comandante's daughter on the ques- 
tions of the heart, 

Until points of gravest import yielded slowly one 

by one, 
And by Love was consummated what Diplomacy 

begun ; 

Till beside the deep embrasures, where the 

brazen cannon are. 
He received the twofold contract for approval of 

the Czar; 

Till beside the brazen cannon the betrothed bade 
adieu. 

And from sallyport and gateway north the Rus- 
sian eagles flew. 

HI. 

Long beside the deep embrasures, where the 

brazen cannon are. 
Did they wait the promised bridegroom and the 

answer of the Czar; 

Day by day on wall and bastion beat the hollow, 

empty breeze, — 
Day by day the sunlight glittered on the vacant, 

smiling seas; 

71 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Week by week the near hills whitened in their 

dusty leather cloaks, — 
Week by week the far hills darkened from the 

fringing plain of oaks; 

Till the rains came, and far breaking, on the 

fierce southwester tost, 
Dashed the whole long coast with color, and then 

vanished and were lost. 

So each year the seasons shifted, — wet and warm 

and drear and dry; 
Half a year of clouds and flowers, half a year of 

dust and sky. 

Still it brought no ship nor message, — brought 
no tidings, ill or meet. 

For the statesmanlike Commander, for the daugh- 
ter fair and sweet. 

Yet she heard the varying message, voiceless to 

all ears beside: 
" He will come," the flowers whispered ; " Come 

no more," the dry hills sighed. 

Still she found him with the waters lifted by the 

morning breeze, — 
Still she lost him with the folding of the great 

white-tented seas; 

74 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Until hollows chased the dimples from her 

cheeks of olive brown, 
And at times a swift, shy moisture dragged the 

long sweet lashes down; 

Or the small mouth curved and quivered as for 
some denied caress, 

And the fair young brow was knitted in an in- 
fantine distress. 

Then the grim Commander, pacing where the 

brazen cannon are, 
Comforted the maid with proverbs, wisdom 

gathered from afar; 

Bits of ancient observation by his fathers gar- 
nered, each 

As a pebble worn and polished in the current of 
his speech : 

" 'Those who wait the coming rider travel twice 

as far as he ;' 
'Tired wench and coming butter never did in 

time agree;' 

" 'He that getteth himself honey, though a clown, 

he shall have flies;' 
'In the end God grinds the miller;' *In the dark 

the mole has eyes;* 

75 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

" *He whose father is Alcalde of his trial hath no 

fear/— 
And be sure the Count has reasons that will 

make his conduct clear." 

Then the voice sententious faltered, and the wis- 
dom it would teach 

Lost itself in fondest trifles of his soft Castilian 
speech ; 

And on "Concha," "Conchitita," and "Conchita" 

he would dwell 
With the fond reiteration which the Spaniard 

knows so well. 

So with proverbs and caresses, half in faith and 

half in doubt, 
Every day some hope was kindled, flickered, 

faded, and went out. 

IV. 

Yearly, down the hillside sweeping, came the 

stately cavalcade, 
Bringing revel to vaquero, joy and comfort to 

each maid; 



76 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Bringing days of -formal visit, social feast and 

rustic sport, 
Of bull-baiting on the plaza, of love-making in 

the court. 

Vainly then at Concha's lattice, vainly as the idle 

wind, 
Rose the thin high Spanish tenor that bespoke 

the youth too kind; 

Vainly, leaning from their saddles, caballeros, 

bold and fleet. 
Plucked for her the buried chicken from beneath 

their mustang's feet; 

So in vain the barren hillsides with their gay 

scrapes blazed, — 
Blazed and vanished in the dust-cloud that their 

flying hoofs had raised. 

Then the drum called from the rampart, and once 

more, with patient mien, 
The Commander and his daughter each took up 

the dull routine, — 

Each took up the petty duties of a life apart and 

lone. 
Till the slow years wrought a music in its dreary 

monotone. 

17 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

V. 

Forty years on wall and bastion swept the hollow 
idle breeze, 

Since the Russian eagle fluttered from the Cali- 
fornia seas; 

Forty years on wall and bastion wrought its slow 

but sure decay, 
And St. George's cross was lifted in the port of 

Monterey ; 

And the citadel was lighted, and the hall was 

gayly drest. 
All to honor Sir George Simpson, famous traveler 

and guest.* 



*The mention of Monterey is a poetic license. Sir 
George Simpson actually met her and acquainted her for 
the first time with the immediate cause of her lover's death, 
at Santa Barbara, where she was living with the De la 
Guerra family, Jan. 24, 1842, after her return from Lower 
California, following the death of her parents. "Though 
Doiia Concepcion," wrote Sir George Simpson, in 1847, 
"apparently loved to dwell on the story of her blighted af- 
fections, yet, strange to say, she knew not, till we mentioned 
it to her, the immediate cause of the chancellor's sudden 
death. This circumstance might in some measure be ex- 
plained by the fact that Langsdorff's work was not pub- 
lished before 1814 ; but even then, in any other country than 
California, a lady who was still young, would surely have 
seen a book, which, besides detailing the grand incident of 

78 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Far and near the people gathered to the costly- 
banquet set, 

And exchanged congratulations with the English 
baronet ; 

Till, the formal speeches ended, and amidst the 

laugh and wine, 
Some one spoke of Concha's lover, — heedless of 

the warning sign. 

Quickly then cried Sir George Simpson: "Speak 

no ill of him, I pray! 
He is dead. He died, poor fellow, forty years ago 

this day, — 

"Died while speeding home to Russia, falling 

from a fractious horse. 
Left a sweetheart, too, they tell me. Married, I 

suppose, of course! 

"Lives she yet?" A deathlike silence fell on ban- 
quet, guests, and hall. 

And a trembling figure rising fixed the awestruck 
gaze of all. 



her life, presented so gratifying a portrait of her charms." 
(An Overland Journey Round the World, during the years 
1841 and 1842, by Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-chief of 
the Hudson Bay Company's Territories, published by Lea 
and Blanchard, Philadelphia, in 1847, page 207.) 

79 



CALIFORNIA ROMANTIC AND RESOURCEFUL 

Two black eyes in darkened orbits gleamed be-. 

neath the nun's white hood;* 
Black serge hid the wasted figure, bowed and 

stricken where it stood. 

"Lives she yet?" Sir George repeated. All were 

hushed as Concha drew 
Closer yet her nun's attire. " Sefior, pardon, she 

died, too!" 



*She did not actually receive the white habit till she was 
received into the Dominican sisterhood, April 11, 1851, by 
Padre F. Sadoc Vilarrasa, in the Convent of Santa Cata- 
lina de Sena (St. Catherine of Siena), at Monterey, being 
the first one to enter, where she took the perpetual vow 
April 13, 1852 (Original Records, Book of Clothings and 
Professions, page 1, now at Dominican College, at San 
Rafael, Cal.), and where she remained continuously till 
the convent was transferred to Benicia, Aug. 26, 1854. There 
being no religious order for women in California until the 
Dominican sisterhood was founded at Monterey, March 13, 
1851 (Original Annals, at Benicia, Reg. 1, pages 1 and 14), 
she had at first to content herself with joining the Third 
Order of St. Francis "in the world," and it was really the 
dark habit of this secular order which constituted the "nun's 
attire" at the time Sir George Simpson met her in 1842. 



80 





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